Monthly Archives: January 2019

The “Season of Giving” is Now

The “holiday season” – Thanksgiving, Hanukah, Christmas – is often called “the season of giving.” Not just because it’s the prime time of year when we give each other gifts, but because “at this festive season,” as the man says in Dickens’s book, many of us give extra to those in need, or to the agencies that help those in need.

*But THIS time is ALSO a season for giving, and maybe the need is even greater now. Many charities and agencies find that once the holiday season is past, giving drops off. But the needs go on. We need to remember that, and we need to also give at THIS time.

*Who to? Well, this month Joyce and I made an extra gift to the Food Bank of the Southern Tier… the more so because, as we understand it, some people in need were being fouled up by the government shutdown. Whether that’s the case or not, the need is still great, so we gave some extra.

*Have you thought about giving to the S.P.C.A.? The small animals are very, very cold, and some will die. But more can be saved, and those already in our local no-kill shelters can be cared for. What’s better than that?

*Give blood. Blood donations dry up dramatically at this time of year… people are busy, people are sick. But accidents go up, and so does demand. Your gift can literally save someone’s life. And it doesn’t even hurt to speak of.

*I gave two gallons of blood before I became medically contraindicated. But from the time they were babies, we always took our sons with us to the blood bank. And from the time they became eligible, they started giving blood themselves, making me very, very proud. And, no doubt, saving many people from losing their loved ones before their time.

*If you are part of a church, synagogue, or other fellowship, then your congregation or denomination may well have vehicles for giving to those in need, such as Mennonite Disaster Service, the multi-denominational One Great Hour of Sharing, Catholic Charities, Catholic Relief Services, Jewish Charities, United Methodist Committee on Relief, Episcopal Relief & Development, and many, many more.

*Whatever your take on the politics of the situation, I would think that we all must be appalled by the horror of children being taken from their parents at the border (sometimes by stealth) and locked up in cages in buildings with the windows painted over, so that the children cannot see the sun. Regardless of what any of us think about policy, surely we can all agree that these children, now in OUR custody, are in dire need. You can give to help them through actblue.com. This site is best known as a clearing house for donations to support the campaigns of Democratic candidates, but they have systems in place where you can give to help the children, and none of it goes to candidates or campaigns, or even to actblue.

*Many churches or communities have local clothing closets, where you can give clothes in good condition to help people keep warm. My wife Joyce over time has knitted scores of mittens for Head Start children in Bath, and dozens of caps for newborns at Corning Hospital. In some cases, this may be the only hand-made item the child ever has. But even if that’s not the case, it’s still a great thing to do. What finer act could there be than keeping little children warm?

American Gethsemane: Steuben County in the Civil War

The Civil War killed as many Americans as all our other wars combined. The “official” Civil War toll is about 625,000, but my research suggests that that’s bogus, because it doesn’t count men who were so sick or so badly wounded that they were discharged, and died soon afterward. By way of comparison, ALL OTHER war deaths total 695,000.
*Of course the Civil War toll includes both sides, and to balance things we should include American Indian deaths in the “all other wars” total.
*Anyhow the Civil War killed maybe 700,000 out of a population of 28 million (2.5% of the total, or 5% of American males). World War II killed 406,000 out of 132 million (three-tenths of one percent, again overwhelmingly male).
*I wanted to look at how the Civil War affected us locally, and I’ve been using W. W. Clayton’s 1879 History of Steuben County to see what the local death toll was, and whether there were any particular battles or prisons that accounted for large numbers of Steuben men. (Clayton gives a town-by-town list of names, usually with detail on each man’s service. His list is known to be incomplete, but it’s probably the best we’ll have.)
*Illness was the big killer of the war, and I suspect that nearly all of the unspecified deaths are actually due to illness. A startling number died at their mustering point of Elmira, before they even left the Southern Tier. No doubt all those men packing together created problems with sewage and with drinking water. But on top of that, many men had never strayed far from their farm or their hamlet. Packed together with thousands of others, they suddenly encountered illnesses they had never faced before, reacted to them severely, and died accordingly.

*Clayton shows a total of 5231 Steuben men in the service.

Died of Illness 099; Unspecified 176 Probably mostly illness; Battle Causes 165; In Prison Camp 049; Accident 007; Suicide 002: TOTAL 498 (9.5% of those who served).

*However this total is known to be low. Clayton’s reports on Howard, Hartsville, and Prattsburgh are lacking death tolls. His report on Wayland only reports deaths for those residents who enlisted in that town. For those who enlisted elsewhere – about half of the group – he has no death reports. Therefore we can conclude that the death toll is well over 500.

*Highest number in service: Bath (455)

*Highest number died in service: Corning (44), Bath (43)

*Highest percentage died in service: Troupsburg (62/222 = 28%)

*The largest single source of death (other than illness) is the Confederate prison system (49).

*The second largest single source is Andersonville Prison by itself. (24). The Andersonville commandant was hanged after the Civil War’s only war crimes trial. (Most prison deaths are probably from illness or starvation, rather than from direct attack by guards.)

*Besides the 24 Andersonville deaths, the total of 49 also includes deaths at Salisbury (6), Florence (4), and Libby Prison (4). Some of those who died in prison no doubt succumbed to wounds they had already suffered before they were captured.

*Besides looking at total death rates, I wanted to see whether particular battles, prisons, or causes took heavy tolls… since men generally served alongside their neighbors, one fierce battle could devastate a whole community.

*Major death tolls attributable to particular battles: Antietam 18; Wilderness 16; Dallas (13) + New Hope Church (3) = 16; Gettysburg 11; Second Bull Run 7; Fredericksburg 6; Chancellorsville 6; Resaca 4; Sabine Crossroads 4.

*Major death tolls attributable to particular campaigns.

*Atlanta Campaign (25 total): Dallas 13; New Hope Church 3; Resaca 4; Marietta 1; Peachtree Creek 3; Atlanta 1.

*Overland Campaign (20 total): Wilderness 16; Spottsylvania 3; Cold Harbor 1.

*Maryland Campaign (19 total): Antietam 18; South Mountain 1.

*Siege of Petersburg (10 total): Petersburg 7; Hatcher’s Run 3.

*Peninsula Campaign (8 total): Williamsburg 2; Fair Oaks 1; Seven Days Battles 5, broken out as Oak Grove 1, Gaines Mill 1, White Oak Swamp 2, Unspecified 1.

*Thus the single battle taking the highest death toll of Steuben men is Antietam… unsurprising in that despite machine guns, poison gas, and all the other killing machinery of modern total war, Antietam remains the bloodiest day in American military history. Moreover, remember that Antietam took place on a single day, whereas many other battles (Gettysburg, Wilderness, Chancellorsville) lasted multiple days.

*The single campaign taking the highest death toll of Steuben men is the Atlanta Campaign.
The fact that the Dallas + New Hope Church total equals the total for the Wilderness suggests fierce fighting, or else very bad leadership… possibly both.

*The American Civil War, because of many innovations in tactics and technology, has been called the first modern war. Part of what happened in this war was that the killing technology got far ahead of the saving technology. Weaponry foreshadowed the 20th century, but surgery and medical care weren’t much advanced from when the Duke of Marlborough was fighting King Louis XIV, back in the early 1700s. I imagine that one of Marlborough’s surgeons could have stepped into a Civil War hospital tent and started operating without causing any comment.

*It’s also true that while technology and tactics were evolving, some commanders didn’t get the memo. “Pickett’s Charge” at Gettysburg, ordered by Robert E. Lee, was an example of a commander reverting to the outdated Napoleonic tactics he had learned at West Point… and inflicting a murderous death toll on his own men.

*And, of course, none of this counts those Steuben men that we KNOW came home missing limbs, having lost the use of limbs, blinded, deafened, debilitated, emotionally and psychologically scarred.

Riding (and Strolling) Routes 5 and 20

A couple of days after Christmas, feeling the need for a getaway, we took an overnight in Geneva, stretching our visit in both directions along Routes 5 and 20.

*Our family has a long history with the long road that has two numbers. In 1939, during the Great Depression, my father-in-law and his cousin drove down 5 and 20, heading from Vermont to Oklahoma, trying without success to find work in the oil fields. At each diner or gas station where they stopped, people were huddled around the radio, listening to news of the German invasion of Poland. It was the first week of the Second World War.

*Little did he know that he would one day have a daughter, and that 53 years after that trip she would be living within sight of 5 and 20, along with her husbnad and their two sons.

*We lived back then in “The Bloomfields,” and as part of our trip we took a drive through Holcomb/East Bloomfield, to find that not much has changed. The green, the church, and the cemetery still welcome visitors. But the Wireless Museum has now moved out to newer facilities on the edge of town, and the historical society is in the old place next to the church.

*One of the reasons we like Canandaigua is because Main Street has a needlework store (Expressions in Needleart) AND a comic book store (Pulp Nouveau). This, we find, is a perfect arrangement for domestic harmony! The Chamber of Commerce has a visitor’s center on Main Street, in case you want directions and information (or a public rest room).

*There’s a new and used bookstore, and the Ontario County Historical Society museum. You can see the lovely courthouse where Susan B. Anthony was tried for daring to vote. (“I will never pay one penny of your unjust fine,” she told the judge, and she didn’t, either.) The business district is busy. There are fine churches, interesting downtown commercial architecture, and a great view of the lake (though in January, you may feel the wind). We had lunch at The Villager, which is where we usually wind up when we’re in Canandaigua, because we like it so much.

*Sonnenberg Mansion and Gardens is closed this time of year, and so is Granger Homestead (historic mansions and carriage collection). But the library is open, with armchairs to sit and read, and rest rooms open to the public. If you have a card in the Pioneer Library System (as I do), you can borrow books.

*In Geneva we stayed at the Holiday Inn Express, and in the mroning explored around the visitors center on the edge of the village, at the foot of Seneca Lake. Even with rain and snow lightly in the air, and wind whipping up whitecaps, we wandered the waterfront (where we once watched a mink dart around, but not that day). Our courage in the face of the weather was as nothing compared to that of the two parasurfers sailing along, zooming across the surface, occasionally losing their progress to sink completely below the waves, then rise again to full height and even higher, lifted high by the hydrofoil.

*The Finger Lakes Welcome Center wasn’t open yet, but we enjoyed the outside, with its benches and playground, and plaques set into the sidewalks recognizing inductees of the Finger Lakes Walk of Fame. Why isn’t Glenn Curtiss there? I must find out how to put in a nomination.

*Waterloo prides itself as the birthplace of Memorial Day. We strolled Main Street, enjoying the turn-of-the-century commercial architecture as far as the Presbyterian church and back, then turned down North Virginia Street to see a church that we’d spotted. This led us to the breathtaking 19th-century library, looking for all the world like an English manor house, replete with high stacks and warm lovely woodwork, and worth a visit all by itself.

*The Christmas decorations were still nice, and a hotel had a countdown set up for New Year’s Eve.

*In Seneca Falls the national sites were closed by the government shutdown, but the Christmas windows still brought smiles as we strolled Main Street. Christmas in senecal Falls means celebrating the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life,” said by some to have been filmed locally (it wasn’t), or to have insored the setting of Bedford Falls (possible.)

*We walked as far as Van Vleet Lake and the stone Gothic Episcopal church, where our friend Brad Benson has recently transferred from Bath to become the rector, then spent some time in the museum and visitors center, and got a good overview of the village’s development, the canal and industrial history, and changes in the watercourse. But I have to confess that I only saw one staff person, and she was just hurrying through to get to the office area.

*We drove past Montezuma National Wildlife refuge (also shut down, we suppose) to the edge of Auburn, where we finally visited Bass Pro Shops… I get numerous e-mails from them every week, but have no idea why. We enjoyed the visit, then turned back to Seneca Falss for pizza. We had headed up to Bloomfield through Prattsburgh and Naples, and now headed hime by way of Geneva, Pre-Emption Road, Bellona, Penn Yan, the East Shore of Keuka Lake, and finally back to Bath.

*Routes 5 and 20 run from Auburn to Avon, following Indian paths. Later the same corridor would carry the Erie Canal, the New York central railroad, and the New York State Thruway. It’s the Route 66 of western New York. We like to drive it. We like to visit.

For Those We Lost, in the Year ’18

Every year, good things happen, although sometimes you can only see in retrospect… sometimes a seemingly insignificant event leads to great things in later years.

*Sometimes too, the good stuff is what DIDN’T happen. In our family in 2018, nobody wound up in the hospital, and nobody died. That the first time since 2011! We had six bad years in a row, then ’18 was good! Woo hoo!

*But almost every year at this time, I pause and take a look back to honor the losses we’ve suffered in the previous year.

*We lost a number of businesses in 2018… businesses that in some cases have been part of our scene since the 19th century, then all the way through the 20th century, and well into the 21st century.

*Two long-established daily newspapers… the Hornell Evening Tribune and the Wellsville Daily Reporter… merged to operate as The Spectator (the name of their already-established joint Sunday edition). In this case the businesses continue, but with the loss of two hallowed names and, as ever, more tightening of the belt on the ability to gather, interpret, and report the news.

*Babcock Ladder closed its doors in Bath. Babcock started out, under another name, as a company making milk churns in the 19th century. Wooden ladders became its forte under Babcock ownership, but now it’s gone.

*So is M. J. Ward, also in Bath. Some years back they closed and demolished the last grain elevator operating in Steuben County. For well over a hundred years they’ve purveyed feed and grain, along with all the other paraphernalia of garden, farm, and lawn.

*Bong’s Jewelers in Corning got started when Benjamin Harrison was president, and has been in the same family ever since. They survived the flood of 1972 on Market Street, but Jeff Bong closed the doors for the last time on New Year’s Eve, to start enjoying a well-earned retirement.

*Also on Market Street Donna’s Restaurant lost its lease, but was able to relocate, to a collective sigh of relief among locals.

*We need to remember that Trooper Nicholas Clark was killed responding to a call about an armed and suicidal man.

*And while I wouldn’t place the two losses on a par, we should also remember that apparent shooter Steven M. Kiley then took his own life… a loss for his family and for the children of Bradford Central School, where he’d been a principal.

*At Steuben County Historical Society we lost long-term member Harold French, a U.S. Navy veteran of the Korean War era.

*Gordon Pierce passed away. Gordon was a volunteer and a former board member at Steuben County Historical Society, also active with Avoca Historical Society, the Methodist Ramp Guys, and in Masonry.

*Henry Dormann died last year. He was a benefactor to Steuben County Historical Society and other agancies, but he is best remembered as having donated a new building to Davenport Library, now Dormann Library, in Bath. He brought in Gerald Ford and Walter Cronkite for the dedication, and his gift triggered a boom of building and renovating among area libraries.

*John Roy left us on Christmas Day. He was a long-time president of Steuben County Historical Society, and he taught for 31 years in the Campbell-Savona schools. John had graduated from the old Savona High School in 1960.

*Bea O’Brien passed away last year. What can I possibly say? She was 98 years of age, and a vetrean of World War II (as a navy nurse). I met her in 1996, soon after we moved here, at the Bath Area Writers Group. I last saw her last summer, on a lawn chair at a concert in the park in Hammondsport.

*She met George during the War, and they were married for 68 years. She lived half a cnetury in Loon Lake. Her book “One Track” is about George’s life as an Erie Railroad man. Poet, nurse, writer, volunteer, historian. It’s impossible to say enough about Bea O’Brien.

*These are losses for the community as a whole. But for Harold, Gordon, John, Bea, and Mr. Dormann, I can speak personally and from the heart as I say thank you. And safe journey.